Your Blogging Staff

Contributing to this blog:
- "Dave" is Dave Barry, who is a humor columnist and presidential contender.
- "judi" is Judi Smith, who is Dave's Research Department, as well as being interested in men.
- "Walter" is Walter, a bone from the penis of a walrus.

A junior high teacher had told all her classes at the beginning of the year that she was asthmatic and requested they refrain from wearing perfume or cologne. One female student was angry at a bad grade she'd received. So she sprayed the teacher's desk and chair in perfume. The teacher had to be sent by ambulance to the hospital, where she stayed for a couple days. The student was sent to another school as a punitive measure.

The difference, Some guy, is that you "jokingly" threatened. These days, it's all about perceived threat and perceived intent.

Oh, I know that. I only mentioned the story because it was similar (as in, it involved a student threatening a teacher with a peanut product). I myself am allergic to perfumes, heavy perfume putting me into a sneezing fit. On two occasions, I've gotten bloody noses from those fits. Hardly life threatening, but very annoying, and usually a bit painful.

In today's public school climate, I'm wondering why teachers would even tell their kids something like "I'm deathly allergic to peanuts" in the first place. Is that really a good strategy? I mean, considering the looks of the majority of the sorry baggy-pants gangsta punks I see walking to and from junior high and high school these days (or am I just getting too old?)

Yeah, but what was he going to do, hold her down and force it down her throat? I mean, was it a real threat or just something "bad" in our P.C. society? Inquiring minds want to know. (If the kid was six feet tall and menacing and the teacher was a shrimp, then they did the right thing.)

I find it interesting that the kid with the cookies did not directly threaten the teacher, but only told one of the girls that he had "something dangerous in his pocket", and this was perceived as a threat to the teacher. It sounds like a whole lot of paranoia to me.

My nephew was suspended for 3 days for bringing a screwdriver to school to fix his desk. It had been broken for two months. The teacher knew he had the tooland didn't care, in fact, she had suggested it. One of the other students told the principle.

The janitor's union insisted that he be made an example. Now he knows better than to mess with the union.

Jeff,
That's what I thought, but no one knew what he had. So why did they assume that he was going to force the cookies down the teacher's throat? There must be some more facts that are not in this story.

As a teacher, let me assure you that common sense does still exist in schools. If this kid is looking a a 10 day suspension, my guess is he has had numerous other run-ins and this is just the one that caused the big penalty. Kids joke all the time. We adults decide when to throw the book at them. Like when we've had so much button pushing from one little snot that we'd like to take those nutter butters and shove them . . .

Similar story to Lily's, but not aimed at children: A professor here taught at like 3 p.m. and hated having a blackboard that was covered with a day's chalk dust. So he used to bring a bucket and sponge to wipe down the boards he used. You guess it -- the janitors' union filed a grievance against the professor's department, saying the prof was trying to take away their jobs.